desktops and kids dont mix !!!

Need your help please i have a 97 apple power mac G3 model m4405 with floppy drive ,cd drive and single hard drive the problem started sunday i went out with a few friends to a club to watch the superbowl game and my son thought he would help his dad fix the computer. He pulled all the ribbon cables and power cables off the motherboard so he could clean the machine better for his dad. Thank god it wasnt plugged in! The problem now is i dont have the first clue how the cables went? The power cables i figured out but the ribbon cables have me stumped?? its an ide system but the motherboard has three connecters one 50 pin and two 40 pins none are labled on the board so i dont know what goes where??? The computer is all factory with no modification at all. I figured out the floppy drive that one was eazy,but dont know how to hook up the rest?? Five year olds can do damage!!!! Brought it over to local pc repair store and the apple repair man said unit was to old for him to fix??? Unit worked great before this mishap. any help you can give me will be greatly appreciated. sincerely mr fixit :sad: p.s. can be contacted by e-mail at sagpmg@aol.com using wifes computer thanks

The 50-pin connector is the internal SCSI connector; if your system is stock, this won't have anything connected to it.

The two 40-pin connectors are the Primary and Secondary IDE channels; your hard drive should be plugged into the Primary channel's connector. I haven't worked on Macs in a few years and don't remember which connector is which on that particular model. Is it a desktop or tower?

If you accidentally connect you hard drive to the wrong one it simply will not boot, but it will not do any damage. (Just have polarity correct)

Look for a mark on the motherboard like IDE-0 that will be your primary

If you have IDE-1 and IDE-2 then IDE-1 is your primary or hard drive

If you only have one cable and it goes to both the hard drive and the CD-Rom or DVD it still goes to the primary IDE

If both your hard drive and CD are on the same cable it (seldom) matters which is connected to which. Some cables are CS or cable select. If you look at your drive (either one) and it is jumpered as primary / master or slave then it is not a CS cable and can be connected either way.

Try one bus and if it dosent boot then switch to the other bus...

The only dangerous thing you can get wrong is the polarity of the cable and 99% of those are keyed and only connect one way...

The other is trial and error... it works or it dont and you switch them...

This wasn't in the Apple Hardware forum, so took me a while to find it. The situation is not as dire as you think, and that Apple fella you talk to at the store should be shot for sending you away like that. I could see if you wanted him to add memory to a Mac Plus or something, but this is either SCSI or IDE, and anyone worth their salt in the profession would know the technologies, and how to wire it up.

If you have a digital camera handy, perhaps taking a picture of the motherboard and of the drive bays would be helpful / useful. We need both because if you have IDE and master/slave relationships, they need to be wired properly. I am also hoping that you do not have too many drives, as if you wire them wrong, you might need to re-install OS X. If it is OS 9 related, I think the system will find the boot partion. Not sure.

As for your son, how did he get into your project room? Did you leave the computer wide open, inviting a curious child? Not trying to lecture you here... but if this was an iMac, or anything with a tube, he could have fried himself. A little physical security needs some review over there.